Saturday, July 07, 2007

The Story of Bruce

Bruce the Duck came to live with us earlier this summer. His journey began with a phone call from the Genius Husband. 'You want another duck?" Hmm. Yeah. I didn't have enough of those. Bruce belonged to a teenage girl, and he spent his early days as a fuzzy, yellow, adored pet. But as ducks do, he grew. And his family began to realize how large (and smelly) he would become. So Bruce made the long car trip from the metro area to the farm by car. Below: Bruce meets the flock. We left him in his cage for the first 24 hours so the rest of the ducks, chickens, and turkeys had a chance to get to know him before any actual mingling occurred. With poultry, this is always a good idea since they'll peck a hole in the head of an outsider if they don't like how he looks. (Or smells.)

Bruce continued to grow, and in just over a week he'd lost the last of his yellow fuzz. He joined the flock and learned about wading pools, mud, and other ducky things.

Silly duck! Anyone who's lived around ducks knows the kind of trouble a duck can get himself into. Bebe, the farmcollie, alerted me to Bruce's predicament -- apparently Bruce had so much fun splashing in the bucket he'd discovered that he splashed out too much water. Ducks have short legs, so they have trouble climbing out if the water level is too low. Bruce, however, didn't want to get out. Oh well. Too bad. No more buckets for Bruce!